root

This morning I finally rooted my Droid Incredible! One-handed, even! (Dislocated finger hidden by massive splint.)

This morning, before I even had my tea, I finally jumped off a cliff I’d been avoiding: I rooted my Android phone (Droid Incredible).

I’ve had this phone for a year. Generally I like it, but the things I don’t like about it mostly seemed to be fixable if I rooted my phone.

Rooting means undoing the controls that the carrier and manufacturer place on how my phone operates…

Some of that is done to reduce the risk that I might accidentally damage my phone — but much of this is so they can make more money by loading my phone with bloatware (some of which I couldn’t uninstall or even turn off!) or charging me for tethering. Both of which, IMHO, are bullshit unethical business practices.

Why was this scary?  And why did I do it?

I rely heavily on my cell phone. It’s my only phone, and it’s a pretty sophisticated and potentially fragile device.

If you root your Android phone and it breaks or bricks (I had a traumatic bricking experience in 2008 with a Nokia N95), you may violate its warranty — which means the carrier or manufacturer may not replace it. Which means I’d have to shell out big bucks for a new smartphone, since I need to have a phone.

But I’d finally had enough…

Four about the fourth time in a year, my phone malfunctioned due to being “low on space” — despite that I’d purchased a much larger SD storage card and used Apps2SD to move everything possible onto it, freeing up the phone’s built-in memory. The culprit is a known bug in many HTC phones that inflates my phone’s Contacts Storage to gargantuan proportions (over 53 MB for me yesterday).

Every HTC phone forum is filled with people complaining about this bug. It can be fixed — for a while — by exporting your contacts to the SD card as a backup, deleting your Contacts Storage data, and then reimporting. That process takes me over an hour, during which I can’t use my phone for anything else or it halts the restore and I have to start over.

Annoying. And after a year, it seems HTC doesn’t care to get around to fixing it.

It seems one way to fix it, for good, is to root the phone and then install a custom ROM (modified version of the Android OS, which would replace the “HTC Sense” flavor of Android that came with my phone) such as CyanogenMod. I’ve now made substantial progress down that path.

How I rooted my Droid Incredible using Unrevoked3

Following guidance from Lifehacker, I learned yesterday that there’s a simple and now well-established way to root the Droid Incredible and several other popular HTC phones: Unrevoked3. It’s a free download. I Googled around and saw many people singing its praises, so it seemed reputable and about as safe as a rooting tool can be.

So I slept on this decision, and I followed the steps suggested by Stever Robbins in his recent podcast, How to face your fears. (Really, it’s good. Give it a listen.)

First thing this morning I went for it: I used Unrevoked3 to root my Droid Incredible.

The phone process took about 15 minutes, and I didn’t have to do much — just hook up my phone to my laptop in charge-only mode with USB debugging turned on, and let it do its thing.

The process quit partway on first try, which concerned me. But I carefully disconnected and then reconnected my phone, relaunched Unrevoked3, and started over. It worked seamlessly on the second try. Whew!

What I did after rooting my phone

Safety first! Immediately after my phone was rooted, I downloaded Titanium backup, widely considered to be a must-have’ for every rooted Android user. I also sprang for the $6.88 to get my Pro Key for it. I used Titanium to back up absolutely everything on my phone, so if through further monkeying I broke my phone, I could restore it to a condition that worked.

Titanium also lets you delete, uninstall, or freeze any app or service on your phone. One really annoying thing about much HTC/Verizon bloatware is that these programs not only can’t be uninstalled, but some of them (like Stocks, CityID, and Skype Mobile) keep auto-launching even if I turn them off! How obnoxious is that????

Generally I think it’s safer to uninstall programs rather than delete them, because you never know how they really interact with other stuff, and finding and downloading the right stuff to reinstall if necessary can be a hassle.

I uninstalled these bloatware apps:

• Car panel 1.0
• City ID 1.0.23
• Facebook for htc sense 1.0
• Flashlight 1.0
• Friend stream 1.0
• Friend stream 1.0 widget
• HTC Sense live wallpapers 1.00
• live wallpaper picker 2.2
• Magic smoke wallpapers 2.2
• Mail widget 1.00
• Music visualization wallpapers 2.2
• News 1.0
• Peep 2.0
• Slacker 2.1.14
• Stocks 2.00
• Stocks widget 1.00
• Teeter 1.00
• V cast apps 1.0.14
• Visual VM 1.13
• 3G mobile hotspot 1.0

In addition I “froze” these apps and widgets, so they can’t be launched:

• Mail 2.00
• Skype mobile 1.0.0.17
• Footprints 1.10
• Footprints widget 1.00
• FM radio 1.00
• FM radio widget 1.00

When I got this far, for good measure I powered down and restarted my phone, just to make sure everything was working — and to see which apps and services would automatically launch. I was pleased to see that no more bloatware was auto-launching!

I can haz tethering, too! (so far)

“Tethering” is when you use your phone as a wireless modem to supply a data connection for a laptop or other device using your wireless carrier’s data network. Google includes this function with the plain vanilla (“stock”) version of Android.

Unfortunately U.S. carriers disable tethering, so they can force you to pay them a monthly fee ($20 or more) for tethering as if it’s some kind of “extra” service — not something they crippled.

This is unreasonable, rapacious bullshit. If I’m paying for a data plan, why should they care which device is the end user of that data?

There have been several Android apps to supply wireless tethering on unrooted phones, but recently carriers have started cracking down on wireless tethering apps.

So I downloaded and installed the free Wifi Tether app for rooted Android phones, and enabled access control in the settings (so I could control which devices connect to my phone).

Then I shut down my home wifi router and looked under the Airport wifi modem menu on my Macbook Pro. There was my phone! I connected to my phone’s wifi from my laptop, then approved that device on the app on my phone, and ta-da! There my laptop was connected to the internet! I repeated the process with my Macbook Air.

In neither case did my phone pop up a warning from Verizon that they wanted to charge me for tethering — something that did happen to ReadWriteWeb. So, as far as I can tell at this point, I can do free tethering from my phone.

I don’t expect to need tethering very often, but I think it’s an important option to have. I have to do a lot of work when I’m traveling, or running around town, and free or reliable wifi isn’t always available. Also, my VPN service Witopia sometimes doesn’t work on soe wifi connections, and connecting via my carrier’s data network is more secure than being on open wifi.

What’s next

I’m still investigating which custom ROM would be best for my phone. I’ll probably do that at some point, since that will probably fix that Contact Storage bug once and for all.

But so far, for now, I’m a much happier Android user now that I’ve gone root.

Amy peak

Me atop Twin Sisters peak yesterday, Estes Park, CO. Geez, I hope it's not ALL downhill from here!... (Click to enlarge)

I’ve always said that my one true goal in life is to be a crotchety old bitch, sitting on the deck of my mountain cabin, a cup of tea or jug of wine and a plate of smoked salmon or trout at my side. I’ll have a shotgun across my knee, ready to cock it at anyone coming down the driveway and yell, “You from the gummint?”

I’m actually not kidding.

I’m not saying I’ll shoot anyone (necessarily), but crotchety old bitches tend to be able to get away with stuff like that, so why not?

The good thing about having this kind of life goal is that simply by continuing to exist, I’m progressing toward it. Today is my 45th birthday, and I’m starting it right — sitting on the deck of my cabin in the Rockies, still shaded by aspen…

I’ve been here for most of a week and have done two fabulous mountain hikes, hung out with good friends in Boulder and up here at the cabin, enjoyed an excellent motorcycle ride with a good friend, spent a day helping another friend in need, cooked some wonderful meals, spent lots of quality time with one of the most important people in the world to me, and generally enjoyed the peace and rhythm that settles over me once I’m much closer to treeline than sea level.

The only thing missing is my cats, who are probably shredding something in my honor right now back in my Oakland apartment. And my sweetheart George — but he got to enjoy this little slice of mountain heaven last month. And my friends and family who are too distant to join me here today.

I was saying to George last night that he’s much braver than I am for daring to be lyrical and personal in his blog. He’s a wonderful writer, and that’s his writing practice. Meanwhile, I’ve been neglecting my blog again — but dry spells happen, and it’s something I can always come back to.

So here I am, daring to be just a bit personal here. Roll with it, it’s an experiment. (UPDATE: This experiment mostly had good results, but led to a notable clueless PR encounter.)

I guess turning 45 makes me officially middle aged (unless you’re a singularity devotee, which I’m not), so that’s good in terms of hitting a milestone toward my life goal. But it does make me wonder: Is this the middle of my life? What do I want to do with the other half, at least en route toward eventual crotchety-old-cabin-bitchedness?

Right off the bat I’m striking off this list anything having to do with grand world-changing achievements or a personal legacy that outlasts my mortal existence. Someday I will vanish from the face of this world, no one will remember me, and that will be OK. The future shouldn’t be too heavily anchored to the past, and I’m happy not to become historical ballast.

I’ve chosen never to have children (and at 45, let’s say I’m safely past that risk) in part because I’m not maternal, but also in part because I seem to lack that craving for immortality that seems to drive why so many people become parents. I love kids and have had many in my life — and hope to always have some in my life. Kids can be amazing friends and teachers. But I don’t want them to owe me anything. Except maybe my Social Security check, but I’m not counting too heavily on that.

That said, I have always had an irrational compulsion to help, and to learn. I feel good about the work I do mainly because, more often than not, what I learn and say and teach about media and technology generally seems to help people.

Even when people disagree with me, or dispute me, or even prove me wrong, it seems I contribute value to the conversation so we all can try more new stuff and figure out what works. So that’s okay. I didn’t become a journalist so that everyone would like me or agree with me, after all.

I have lots of flaws, and I’ll always have lots of flaws. During the rest of my life I’d like to continue working on them. That’s been a pretty rewarding effort — if at times awkward, difficult, and painful.

I’ve realized, though, that in working on my flaws I must be guided mostly by my own internal compass about what kind of person I want to be. Too often in my life I’ve taken to heart criticism from others that’s rooted mostly in their own expectations or fears. That’s not to say I ignore criticism from others; but I need to consider it carefully, to figure out if their motives and goals jibe with mine, before attempting to reshape myself in light of that information.

Because this life I have — it’s mine. What I do with it needs to matter to me, and feel right to me. Especially since I’m eschewing the whole legacy deal.

For too long, I suppressed what I really felt and wanted in life. Often it didn’t seem to be what other people wanted, and it definitely didn’t seem to be what social norms said I should want — so just being one person, I had to be wrong, right? Wrong!

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that — despite entrenched social norms — relationships are not one-size-fits all. So when someone matters to me, it rarely makes sense to cut them out of my life just because the nature of our relationship shifts. Which is why I’m spending a week at my cabin with my former spouse Tom, who is (and has always been) one of my closest friends and confidantes.

The few times in my life I’ve had to remove people from my life, that’s been very difficult and painful for me. But mostly, I can find ways to accommodate changes, and additions.

My inclinations for almost all kinds of relationships are mostly “both/and” not “either/or” — which is why I’m polyamorous, and probably also why I’ve been self employed for so long. I’m often amazed, amused, puzzled, or dismayed when I encounter people who require hard lines and clear roles in their connections with others — as if things like monogamy, a full-time job, a college degree, a conventional family, or legal recognition will ensure safety or happiness. I’m not saying they’re wrong and I’m right. I’m just saying, it’s a mindset I have a hard time understanding. But I respect that these things mean a lot to people, including many very smart people I care about and respect deeply.

In the past decade especially I’ve really grown to love diversity in most aspects of life: Diversity of thought, diversity of people, diversity of cultures and ethnicities, diversity of age, diversity of experience, diversity of desires, you name it. And I am part of that diversity.

This doesn’t mean I need to (or can) learn to appreciate or like everything — for instance, creationism? Oppression and racism? Iceberg lettuce? The Iraq war? Anime? Las Vegas? Humid weather? I don’t think so. But I generally have found that understanding why other people fiercely embrace and enjoy things I find abhorrent helps me navigate this world better. And I don’t need to agree with people in order to learn from them.

In the last few years especially I’ve become keenly aware of how much place matters to my sense of well being. I need to feel like I have a home, in a place I can love. I can live other places for a while, and enjoy that — but eventually I feel the need to go home. I’m at one of those points now. I’ve lived for a few years in Oakland, a city that has taught me much, where I’ve found many friends and amazing love. But it’s not home for me, and I need to start searching for home.

Fortunately, I don’t have to rush. Since I’m self-employed and can work from anywhere with internet access and that’s not too far from an airport, I’m not tied to any one location for external reasons. And I also don’t have to have a hard deadline for moving. I’ve arranged my life to offer lots of flexibility, and that’s perhaps the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

I’m not sure where I’ll live next. I’d always assumed I’d eventually just go back to Boulder, Colorado — a place that I’ve always loved and that was a wonderful home to me for many years. And I may still do that. But right now, at this point in my life, Boulder feels a little small and insular to me.

So I’m considering some cities like Portland and Denver. I need to live in a place that’s not totally ruled by cars, near real mountains, where the summers aren’t humid and the winters aren’t relentlessly frigid. And where there are people I enjoy, with a culture that’s diverse and generally friendly and flexible.

Oakland offers many of those things, but I feel constantly hemmed in by concrete and cars there. And California’s mountains are too far away. But there may be other California options for me, I’m not ruling it out. Mostly I’m hoping to find a place I love that doesn’t requiring owning a car.

Life can change drastically or end at any moment. While I’m here, I want to experience it, and enjoy it, and to be good to others and to myself. I’ve been gratified to have so many wonderful people in my life: family, friends, lovers, colleagues, teachers, and more.

I’ve been surprised to realize what a social creature I am, but I need my private time too. So I’m really glad to be around at the dawn of social media — a tool that allows me to foster and maintain a wide range of connections from all parts of my world. One of the first things I did today was post to social media, to let people know it’s my birthday, because birthdays actually matter to me and I’ve learned it’s not reasonable to expect people to be telepaths.

Anything that helps me communicate with and connect with people is probably mostly good, as far as I’m concerned. And I’ve tried to learn how communication can do the most good and the least harm. I think the ability to communicate has largely defined how humans have evolved, for better or worse. It’s powerful. I enjoy learning how to do it better — even though it hurts like hell when I screw it up.

So this post is rambling, and personal, and it may or may not make sense. But it’s just where I’m at right now, a snapshot of a work in progress. And since I’m scared to post it, for fear of embarrassment or criticism, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve learned the most from facing my fears and inhibitions.

Thanks for reading, if you’ve read this far. The direct sun is hitting my cabin deck now, so I’ll take a deep breath and post this — and then make some more tea and breakfast, and get ready to welcome some friends up here to celebrate later today.

If you come down my cabin driveway today, I promise not to shoot.

deck

Crotchety old bitch, in progress....

Adirondacks (Tivoli 440/540): Mobile Reporting
As more and more users turn to mobile devices for news and information, journalists should be including the platform in their news gathering and delivery. But how? This session will take a big-picture look at trends in the mobile industry, the differences between mobile and the web, the significance of having a mobile presence and the best tools to use in the mobile space.

Here are some things I’ll be mentioning…

My Twitter ID: @agahran (be sure to spell it right — most people get it wrong)

Know your mobile media channels — if you understand this, you can do a better job of mobile publishing/engagement and reporting from the field

Will Sullivan, master of all things mojo: @journerdism

Will’s excellent mobile journalism tools guide

I’ll expand this post after the session with links to whatever mobile stuff we end up discussing.

First, my colleague Jason Da Ponte gives an excellent overview of the current and evolving mobile landscape, and the role of journalism in an increasingly mobile media environment.

My part starts around 21 minutes in. Afterward, Jason & I answered questions.

It was Memorial Day, I decided to go for a long bike ride to see the beach at Alameda. I needed the exercise, and the weather was perfect. I was enjoying myself greatly — but as I was biking back along Crown Beach in Alameda, I saw police, firefighters, and onlookers gathered. I asked what was happening, and they told me that a man was stranded offshore. A firefighter pointed out into the water, and I could see a head bobbing above the waves, about 150 feet out.

“It’s shallow out there, he’s standing,” said the firefighter. And indeed, the man didn’t seem to be struggling. But he wasn’t waving or shouting for help, either.

More onlookers gathered, and I snapped some pictures. I couldn’t get a good photo of the man in the water, but I photographed the gathering crowd, and tweeted it both on @agahran and @oaklandlocal, a local news/community site where I’m a senior editor.

alameda rescue1

Rescue workers, locals, watch drowning man, Crown Beach, Alameda, CA

I heard locals talking, and asked them if they knew the man. “He was depressed, off his meds, lost his job,” said one neighbor. “He just walked out into the water with all his clothes on. He’s trying to kill himself.”

In that moment, I froze. I couldn’t be a journalist just then. It felt too personal.

Crowd gathers as man drowns, Crown Beach, Alameda, CA

alameda crowd 2

alameda drowning

You can't see him, but the drowning man was about here offshore, Crown Beach, Alameda.

About a year ago, a good friend from Boulder, who’d grown distant, took his own life. Max was a few years younger than me, a doting father, an artist, sociable and often grinning.

But a few years ago, his life fell apart, I’m not sure why. It happened when my own life was in major transition, and I was feeling the stress of that change. While I never considered suicide, I could relate to feeling overwhelmed and rootless.

I’ve been haunted by Max’s death — and really spooked by suicide ever since.

Back on the beach, a kiteboarder zipped out to the drowning man and circled him several times, coming back to report to emergency personnel on the beach. It seemed like it was taking a long time to mount a rescue so close to shore

So yesterday I rationalized: “This isn’t Oakland. I’m off duty. I don’t need to cover this. I don’t want to cover this. I’ve tweeted my pictures, that’s enough for now.”

So I left. I biked across to Bay Farm Island, where I saw an orange emergency helicopter fly in across the water, hover over the man’s location, then leave. And I continued my bike ride, and went home, trying to shake the spooked feeling.

Last night I got a call from the Bay Area ABC station, KGO7, asking for permission to use my photos in their story about the incident. I said yes, as long as their web story linked to Oakland Local. Here is the KGO story. (Getting them to add that link took some further prodding, but they did it — legacy news orgs often overlook/downplay local news startups, and I get tired of that.)

Reading and watching KGO’s story, I realized how I’d messed up yesterday. They got the story right: Why were so many emergency personnel there on the beach, just watching a man drown 150 feet away?

I was grappling with my own complex connection to suicide. When I considered what I’d cover, if I did cover it, I could only envision a typical story focused on the guy who was killing himself. I didn’t want to do that — I’d have felt like that would be gratuitously pimping out his misery. It was yet another reason to turn away.

But KGO got the story right, the story my own pictures told: Where was the rescue?

As it turned out, Alameda police and firefighters are not currently certified to mount a land-based water rescue. They had to cut back on that training due to budget problems. To attempt such a rescue without certification apparently meant the city could get sued. So they just stood there and watched.

Which is horrible. And I should have asked about that.

According to KGO:

The Alameda Fire Department says budget constraints are preventing it from recertifying its firefighters in land-based water rescues. Without it, the city would be open to liability.

“Well, if I was off duty I would know what I would do, but I think you’re asking me my on-duty response and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures because that’s what’s required by our department to do,” Alameda Fire Div. Chief Ricci Zombeck said when asked by ABC7 if he would enter the water to save a drowning child.

Alameda firefighters could not even go into the water to get the body, so they waited until a woman in her 20s volunteered to bring the body back to the beach.

On duty, off duty.

I’d told myself this incident was out of my journalistic jurisdiction, and I was not on the clock for Oakland Local right then. All a rationalization because I was having an emotional response that made me feel helpless, depressed, out of place.

Meanwhile, those Alameda cops and firefighters were on duty — but said that status was precisely why they couldn’t act.

We all failed that day, And Ray Zack, 53, of Alameda, drowned while we stood by.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, my good friends Randy and Kit Cassingham told of a rescue that did happen. Everyone was on duty. But knowing Randy and Kit, if they were off duty, it wouldn’t have mattered. They would have rescued the teenager who fell off a cliff during a post-graduation party in a remote rural mountain area.

I’m not sure what to do with this. But I know now, really know, that a journalist can’t ever truly be off-duty. Certainly not for life-or-death events. I could not have save this Alameda stranger, any more than I could have saved my friend Max. But I should have asked more questions, and not given in to how I was feeling. I don’t blame the Alameda emergency responders for their inaction, but that situation had a dreadful wrongness about it.

I’m trying to figure out what to do with this. Suggestions are welcome, please comment below.

UPDATE: This sad event gave me an idea for the upcoming Code for Oakland event I’m helping to organize. What if emergency response agencies/dispatch could coordinate with qualified local volunteers in all kinds of emergencies? Like, say, people with Red Cross lifeguard certification? Stay tuned…

CNN tech Writer Amy Gahran talks to CNN about… by BeyondPixBroadcast

And here’s the transcript.

Now that you’ve seen the finished product, here’s the backstory….

My interview was scheduled for 11:40 am. CNN arranged to have a car pick me up at my home in Oakland to drive me across the Bay Bridge to a TV studio in San Francisco. The pickup time was 9:30 am — a bit on the early side, but you never know about bridge traffic, even on a weekend holiday. The driver actually came early, and there was no traffic, so I arrived at the studio around 9:45 am.

I rang the buzzer on the building’s outer door, which was locked. No one answered. Tried again a few minutes later, and nothing. Ten minutes later, still nothing. I verified I had the correct address, but saw no signage indicating a TV studio was in that building.

So I called CNN headquarters to see if they had an on-site contact for the studio. They gave me a number that sent me to the voice mail for their Los Angeles bureau. Not helpful. After three more calls to CNN, I finally learned that this building wasn’t their studio — it’s an independent studio they lease time at (pretty normal for TV).

CNN staff was apparently searching around for an on-site contact, and I was getting a bit nervous at that point. Since a lot of media & CNN people follow me on Twitter, I posted for help there too. But didn’t get much response. Hey, it was a holiday for many…

Nearly an hour after I arrived, someone finally came down to let me inside. I waited in the studio (alone, surprisingly) for a bit. Then around 11am the makeup artist arrived. Shortly after the engineer walked in. Then a second engineer arrived — who, as it turned out, was redundant, so he went home.

cylon CNN

This is who.. er.. what was interviewing me at CNN. I now suspect that the "C" in CNN stands for "Cylon".

The interview itself was pretty quick. But I wasn’t actually talking to Fredricka Whitfield. She was just a disembodied voice in my ear. I was sitting in a chair in front of the CNN backdrop. I snapped a photo of what I was actually talking to (see left).

Once everyone was on site, it all ran smoothly. And that’s my point here — TV people often pull things together at the last minute, but they do manage to pull it all together, on a daily basis, and it works. I just happened to be unfamiliar with their process.

Now I know to expect that unless you’re going to a full-time network studio, people may not show up until the last minute. Which makes sense if a network is leasing studio time — which I gather does not come cheaply.

After my interview, the driver was kind enough to drop me at Dolores Park, in time for the annual Easter celebration of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Here are my photos. (Note: Some are not safe for work.)

It was a blast! I especially loved the Hunky Jesus competition. (The winner was “Jesus F*cking Christ”, but my favorite was “Son of Godzilla.”) And of course, there were many exultant cries of “He is risen!” and “Ahh… men! Ahh… women! And Ahhheverything in between!”

I only regretted that I was wearing full-on business attire. But at least with the TV studio makeup overload still fairly fresh on my face, I did blend in a bit with this crowd. At least in spirit. I definitely felt like I was playing dress-up.

After the Hunky Jesus competition, I strolled over to Revolution Cafe on 22nd street to enjoy some live jazz…

Revolution Cafe Jazz

Live Jazz at Revolution Cafe, SF, Easter 2011

NOTE: This list represents only the pieces I authored. My colleagues Adam Glenn and Michele McLellan wrote several other posts. You can find everything on the News for Digital Journalists blog.

Most important post: March 14: Pew research points to mobile opportunities for local news, info. There’s a lot to learn from in this Pew report. I spotted these strategic implications:

• Attract more young people to your news brand. Tomorrow’s audience has to come from somewhere. The research indicates that news orgs could promote long-term growth of their local news market via mobile offerings.
• Native apps not really such a great revenue strategy. In fact, Pews numbers paint a pretty dismal picture for trying to generate much revenue from getting people to pay for content. Now, if news apps became more service-oriented, that could change the picture…
• Embrace the spectrum of mobile technology, not just smartphones. OK, Pew, didn’t look at this directly, but when you look at their numbers you can see that feature phones are a big part of the picture. And the news business mostly thrives based on audience size. Ignoring feature phones means leaving money on the table and alienating potential allies.

Other posts…

Feb. 22: Disaster news prep: Google Person Finder. I wrote this after the Christchurch, NZ earthquake but before the big Japan earthquake/tsunami. Goal here is to tell news orgs how they can leverage this tool by embedding it in their own pages. Also, if your region gets hits by a disaster, I tell how to ask Google to spin off a new instance of Person Finder. You can spin off your own instance, but it’s better to see if Google will do it first to avoid confusion.

Feb 28: Engaging tomorrow’s news audience today: Report. Research from the Newspaper Association of America takes a closer look at sub-groups within the youth demographic for news audiences. I’d like to see more research like this. More importantly, I’d like to see some evidence that news organizations are actually using this research in their strategies.

March 8: Knight Community Info Toolkit: Help make your community stronger with better info. Summary of a new planning tool for community activists. This is the kind of effort I’d love to see news organizations get involved in, but it’s interesting that the toolkit is not really intended for news organizations.

March 9: Knight names new VP of Journalism and Media Innovation: Michael Maness. Pretty significant shift of leadership at the Knight Foundation. It’ll be interesting to see what direction Maness wants to take Knight’s programs. Especially now that the Knight News Challenge is in its fifth and possibly final year. (It was originally intended as a five-year contest program.)

March 11: Texas Tribune, Bay Citizen win Knight grant to build open-source news platform. I’m curious about this project — especially whether it will build upon existing open-source platforms (hopefully WordPress rather than Drupal, if so), and what kind of mobile functionality, if any, it will include.

March 17: New York Times launches paywall — and why most news orgs shouldn’t. Most people who watch the media business are pretty down on this strategy. Frankly, I’m also pessimistic — although I suspect the Times may be able to pull it off, for a while, without really hurting its audience size or search visibility. But there are so many loopholes, and so few real benefits to paying subscribers, that I’ve got to wonder why they’re even bothering with this. It seems almost like a philosophical exercise. They should be putting these resources into offering services that they can sell, if you ask me. As for the vast majority of news orgs: Don’t try this at home. The Times is a very special case.

March 22: Why “data journalism” is good for the news business. My UK colleague Paul Bradshaw wrote an excellent analysis of the many ways that data-focused content (such as interactive databases) and services (such as APIs of metadata from a news org’s content) can help build a news business.

Here’s a quick rundown of my own changes, and contributing reasons for them. I’d be curious to hear about other people’s personal media evolutions, too. Please share your own experiences in the comments below…

1. More conversation and annotation, less exposition.

I’m an avid user of two social media channels: Twitter and Delicious. Through these, I’ve gotten used to quickly stating what really needs to be shared or communicated. Most of the points I want or need to make don’t require exposition. Generally just a brief statement, or a link with context, will suffice. This is why the vast majority of my posts to this blog have been syndicated from links I’m saving and annotating in Delicious.

Personally, I think this is a gain, not a loss. For most things, I prefer more efficient communication. It allows me to cover more ground — and to learn more.

What’s lost? Not eloquence, since I was never very eloquent. However, continuity and context can suffer. Often it can be difficult for others (or for me) to follow my trail of breadcrumbs, to connect all the dots in order to see a larger picture. Yes, I still want a “me collector“.

2. More text, less voice.

I’ve never been much for talking on the telephone. I even squirm at face-to-face conversations that go on for more than about 20-30 minutes at a stretch.

Instant messaging suits me much better. It’s a key way that I keep in touch with the people who matter most in my life. Every day I text-chat with my current and former intimate partners, close friends, colleagues, and more casual friends. I’ve been able to connect with these people more substantially and meaningfully through instant messaging than by relying primarily on phone or voice.

I like the pace of IM conversations. They’re either very fast and functional (“Got a quick question for ya…”) or they ebb and flow over an hour or more. Depending on the conversation or person involved, I don’t like to feel the constant pressure to respond immediately that exists in phone or face-to-face conversations. In IM chats, pauses generally aren’t awkward, so conversation feels less forced. Even better, my attention is free to wander, as it is prone to do, without me seeming rude or uncaring.

What’s lost? I still see local friends face-to-face quite often, so I don’t feel I’m lacking conversation there. But I do make less effort than I probably should to reach out by phone to people who are important to me but who don’t use IM. So there is some relationship impact there. I do tend to prioritize people who are available via my preferred communication channels.

3. News: Listening up, reading down

It’s been many years since I read much news in print. But in the last couple of years I’ve found myself relying almost entirely on audio news podcasts for my daily fix of what’s happening. I prefer to listen to news while doing things: making breakfast, cleaning up, working out, running errands, strolling the neighborhood, etc. I don’t just sit there and listen to news, and I almost never watch video news podcasts. When I have to sit there for news, whether for reading or watching, I get antsy.

It’s not that I don’t read online news at all. Every day, I read a lot of online news — but rarely any more than headlines and the first few paragraphs of most online news stories. I’m one of those people who’s more likely to glance at the headlines and summaries on Google News (especially on my phone) a few times a day, and to maybe click through to a couple of stories.

There are exceptions: When an article is highly recommended by a friend or colleague, or when it’s extremely relevant to my specific circumstances or interests, I’m likely to read it through to the end. Quite often, for online news I really want to read, I’ll use Instapaper to transfer the content of that web page to my Kindle. I’m not crazy about reading long-format content in my web browser. I prefer an e-book reader. Both the Kindle device and the Kindle iPhone app offer me a great e-reader experience.

What’s especially interesting to me is that through audio news podcasts I feel a very strong loyalty to several mainstream and niche news brands (NPR, Slashdot Review, etc.). However, when reading online news via a web browser, I feel almost no brand loyalty. I have a strong preference for news aggregators over news sites. It’s very rare that I visit the home page of a news site.

What’s lost? For me, nothing. Do habits like mine hurt the news biz? I don’t think so — especially since it’s the only way I feel any loyalty for specific news brands these days.

4. Journaling: Sharp increase

2009 was an emotionally wrenching year for me. I sold my house, ended my marriage, transitioned to a very positive post-marriage relationship with my former spouse, moved from Boulder to Oakland, left my cats behind for now, downsized my possessions to fit into a single room, got knee surgery, dealt with knee surgery rehab, traveled a lot, had a very short and unhappy relationship with an unsuitable partner, began a much more rewarding and happy relationship with a very suitable partner, watched my cousin die from afar, and some other stuff…

Most of this I would never blog about. Some of it I wouldn’t tweet about, either. But I do write about it all, in my paper journal.

Yes, when it comes to working through difficult emotional stuff, journaling tends to work best for me. And this year I filled up three of them. That’s a lot for me. There have been times in my life when I didn’t journal much at all. For the past couple of years I’ve been journaling a lot, and it keeps me sane.

I like doing some writing that is only for me. And I like doing it by hand. I like the feel of a fine-point felt-tip pen on the creamy paper of a Moleskine journal. It feels deeply personal and intimate. I think better about how I feel when I journal. I understand myself and my life better. I forgive myself more, I allow myself more. I don’t worry about covering all bases or responding to critics. And right now, I need all of that.

5. Twitter as antidepressant

I’ve noticed that when I’m feeling low energy or in a down mood, spending a few minutes scanning Twitter tends to engage and energize me. I follow a lot of very interesting people and organizations on Twitter. Any time I dip my toes into that Twitter stream I always find something interesting, amusing, heartfelt, friendly, or useful.

…Yes, there’s some drivel and occasional nastiness. But I tend to unfollow people who get boring or mean there. So I’ve got a pretty high-quality Twitter stream.

I like that Twitter takes so little effort to read. (Similarly, I dislike Facebook because its interface is so chaotic.) I feel no pressure or desire to “catch up,” for me Twitter is all about right now. If I’m feeling lonely or bored or isolated, it’s an easy way to reach out to people I know. I respond often to other’s tweets, both publicly and by private direct message.

In a year of so much personal upheaval, having an instantly available ambient sense of my friends around me, and what they’re into, has helped keep me functional, balanced, and happier than I would have been otherwise.

The downside? Yes, sometimes Twitter can be too distracting. When I was having some especially hard times in my life earlier this year, I definitely used Twitter to procrastinate and distract myself. But that seems, for me, to be more a function of how I’m doing, rather than anything inherent to Twitter.

…Anyway, those are the changes I’ve notices in my own reading/writing patterns. What about you? Please comment below.

Yes, the Collaboratory has a Ning community site. However, it’s always easier to engage people when you go where they are, rather than demanding they come to your site just to talk and share. Hence the fan page — so we can bring the activity of the Collaboratory to our members who spend more time on Facebook than on the Collaboratory site.

I still hate Facebook, but since it’s so damn popular I have no choice but to use it, especially to connect with various communities. One of the many things that annoy me about Facebook is how difficult they make it to import content from several different feeds onto a fan page’s comment wall.

I’m by no means a Facebook expert, but I just hacked a solution to that particular problem, and thought I’d share it…

WHAT I WANTED TO INTEGRATE:

Besides Facebook, the RJI Collaboratory has several online presences:

• Ning community
• Twitter feed
• Delicious network

I wanted items from all of these to be published to the wall of our Facebook fan page, so that our “fans” and others would see them in their Facebook news feed.

You can import a feed so that its items appear as “notes” on your fan page, which in turn get published to your fan page’s comment wall (Jean O’Brien explains how). However, Facebook only lets you import ONE feed — not several. And each of the Collaboratory’s online presences has its own feed.

MY SOLUTION:

I used the free service Xfruits to combine our Ning, Delicious, and Twitter feeds into a single feed: RJIcollab Aggregator.

Then I imported that aggregated feed into our fan page, using O’Brien’s process.

It seems to be working. Items from Ning, Delicious, and Twitter are all getting posted to our comment wall. Check it out.

…One side benefit of this is that Facebook makes it much easier than Ning to have conversations about specific content items. For instance, on the home page of the Collaboratory on Ning, we have a box that displays the latest links from our Delicious network. However, Ning offers no way for members to post comments about that content.

In Ning communities, you can only have public discussions through comments to blog posts (and Ning doesn’t let you import feeds as blog posts), or in forum threads (which just gets to be a mess and isn’t very findable).

Our hope is that our Facebook fan page will be a useful (and perhaps easier-to-use) complement to our Ning community, as well as a venue for broader distribution and discussion of the Collaboratory.

I’m doing this as a pilot test for a new professional service I’d like to start offering: Great live event coverage.

In my experience, most online event coverage isn’t so great. A few folks will be tweeting or blogging in several places, some hashtags will be used, but it’s all rather confusing and inconsistent to follow. Also, a lot of people tend to tweet items like “Jane Doe is speaking at this session now.” Uh-huh… AND….?

Liveblogging/tweeting has turned out to be a real strength of mine — I’m good at it, and I enjoy it. I’ve also had the good fortune to collect a sizable Twitter following among folks whose interests in media, business, and other fields overlap with mine — and who enjoy my particular blend of reporting, analysis, and attitude. (Or at least I guess they do, because every time I do live event coverage my Twitter posse swells noticeably and those folks tend to stick around afterward.)

I do a lot of live event coverage via Twitter and CoverItLive. For instance, earlier this month for my client the Reynolds Journalism Institute I liveblogged/tweeted J-Lab’s Fund My Media Startup workshop at the 2009 Online News Association conference.

So, being a longtime entrepreneur always on the lookout for new opportunities, I’m looking for ways to offer live event coverage as a service for my clients. Today’s event is an experiment on this front.

I want to figure out how this service could work in a way that would appeal to my Twitter posse, maintain my integrity and independence, and provide value to clients who’d pay for it.

Here are some of the issues I’m wrestling with, that I’d welcome your thoughts on…

QUALITY AND RELEVANCE

I wouldn’t accept just any live-coverage gig. It has to be a good fit for my interests, and those of my Twitter followers. So I’d be concentrating on events in areas such as:

• Media and journalism
• Energy
• Environment
• Government transparency and civic engagement/action
• Key media technologies (mobile, mapping, databases, collaboration, etc.)
• Social trends/dynamics (including race, gender, sexuality)
• Offbeat entertainment (science fiction, indy arts & music, strange festivals, zombies, etc.)

INDEPENDENCE

I’m a lousy lapdog. I don’t generally go out of my way to be rude or snarky — especially when someone has invited me to their event and given me a platform. But I do have attitude, a sense of humor, and I say what I think. I must always feel free in my event coverage to disagree, question, criticize, or challenge.

The people who hire me to cover their events need to understand that at some point I will say something they won’t be 100% comfortable with. I am not their mouthpiece. I am providing a service of visibility and engagement. That’s always going to be a bit uncomfortable. In fact, that’s the point.

So, hiring me is not like hiring a PR agency to make you look good. It’s more like issuing a press pass — but knowing that there will be consistent coverage throughout the event. I’ll also work to make sure the online audience gets represented in the live event, by posing questions and comments on their behalf.

TRANSPARENCY

Here’s the background on today’s gig, so you know what the terms of this coverage are.

Doyle Albee, president of Metzger Associates (a PR/communications firm based in Boulder, CO) has hired me to cover this event. I chose to do this because:

1. Doyle is a cool guy and a friend of mine from Boulder. He appreciates my perspective, even though we regularly disagree. He likes how I cover events and wants me to just do what I do — which includes allowing me to question or critize what happens at the event, if I see fit to do so.
2. Dave Taylor, another longtime Boulder friend of mine, is co-leading the event. Doyle and Dave are both great presenters, and I learn much from observing them.
3. The lineup of speakers looks pretty good.
4. This isn’t a mob scene. While I like covering events, major mob scenes like South by Southwest tend to put me on sensory/info overload pretty quickly, and leave me quaking in a fetal position. I prefer covering events for small-to-medium groups where I can get a real sense of what participants think, how peoples’ thinking evolves, and which takeaways are most meaningful.
5. It’s not summertime. Vegas summers slay me. Today is a pleasant, cool early autumn day, more my style.

Full disclosure: Metzger has paid my expenses and waived my fee to participate in this event. I did not ask for a fee for this coverage since I’m fine-tuning this service offer. However, for future live event coverage with this or other clients I will get paid a professional rate for the service.

I decided to not ask for a fee for this event because I want to engage my Twitter posse in a discussion about how I can do event coverage as a professional (fee-based) service in a way that works well for my Twitter followers. That is, I didn’t want to start selling this service before talking to my tweeps about how I can make this work for them.

My liveblog is appearing on Metzger’s site, and I’ll be cross-tweeting to Metzger’s own Twitter account. So while I might occasionally have something to critize, since they’re opening up their platforms for me to use I’ll be civil. Unless something truly egregious happens — and in that case, I’ll still be civil, but I’ll say what I mean.

Anyway, that’s the general plan. What are your thoughts, opinions, questions, criticisms? Please comment below, or tweet me @agahran, or e-mail me.

Again, this is an experiment. I’m not expecting everyone to be happy, or everything to run smoothly. But I do expect to learn a lot. Let me know what you think.